Deepika out of Rajinikanth's Rana?

By Hindustan Times

Last year, Rajinikanth began working on his much-awaited Tamil historical action film, Rana. But during the first schedule of shooting, he fell ill while on the sets and had to be hospitalised for more than a month, thereby postponing the shoot indefinitely.

But now, director K.S. Ravikumar confirms that they will soon resume the shooting of the film after the release of their current venture, Kochadaiyaan (also in Tamil), in November.

“Rajni Sir has told me that he will start shooting for Rana immediately after Kochadaiyaan,” says Ravikumar. Ask him about the rumours that the film is being permanently shelved and he says, “I don’t know anything about that. I have told you what he (Rajinikanth) told me personally. He is very excited about the project”.

Deepika Padukone, who was also meant to act in the film, might not be part of the movie anymore. “Deepika is already doing Kochadaiyaan with Rajni Sir. And we might not want to repeat the same pair immediately. But we will take the final call when the film’s shooting resumes,” says Ravikumar.

The shooting for Kochadaiyaan concluded just a few weeks back. “We will now work on the post-production. Since the film involves a lot of intricate motion capturing and 3D, it will take some time to wrap up,” says Ravikumar.

Kochadaiyaan is a period film directed by Rajni’s daughter Soundarya and scripted by Ravikumar. The film will be released in Hindi, Japanese and English, and will feature A.R. Rahman’s music.

The core team of Rana is almost the same, with Ravikumar directing, Soundarya producing and AR Rahman doing the music. The script is by Rajni himself.